Beggars Banquet by Ian Rankin Read Free Book Online Page B

the cars behind me to pass. I was content to sit for a few moments and let everything settle, my stomach included. One car stopped alongside me. And Jesus, wouldn’t you know it: it was a cop car.
    ‘Everything all right?’ the cop in the passenger seat called.
    ‘Yeah, just stalled.’
    ‘You can’t sit there for ever.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘If it doesn’t start next go, push your car to the side of the road.’
    ‘Yeah, sure.’ He made no move to leave. Now the driver was looking at me too, and traffic was building up behind us. Nobody sounded their horn. Everyone could see that a cop car was talking with the driver of another vehicle. Sweat tickled my ears. I turned the ignition, resisting the temptation to pump the accelerator. The engine rumbled, then came to life. I grinned at the cops and started forwards, going through an amber light.
    They could probably arrest me for that. It was five minutes before I stopped staring in the rearview mirror. But I couldn’t see them. They’d turned off somewhere. I let all my fear and tension out in a rasping scream, then remembered the window was still rolled down. I wound it back up again. I decided not to go straight to the bridge-site, but to drive around a bit, let all the traffic clear along with my head.
    I pulled into a bus-stop just before the North Circular and changed into my work clothes. That way I wouldn’t look suspicious. Good thinking, eh? It was my own idea, one Daintry had appreciated. I had a question for him now, and the question was: why wasn’t he doing this himself ? But he wasn’t around to answer it. And I knew the answer anyway: he’d rather pay someone else to do dangerous jobs. Oh yes, it was dangerous; I knew that now. Worth a lot more than a hundred and twenty-five nicker, sixty of which was already in my pocket in the shape of dirty old pound notes. Repayments, doubtless, from Daintry’s punters. Grubby money, but still money. I hoped it hadn’t come from the McAndrews.
    I sat at the bus-stop for a while. A car pulled in behind me. Not a police car this time, just an ordinary car. I heard the driver’s door slam shut. Footsteps, a tap at my window. I looked out. The man was bald and middle-aged, dressed in suit and tie. A lower executive look, a sales rep maybe, that sort of person. He was smiling in a friendly enough sort of fashion. And if he wanted to steal my car and jemmy open the boot, well, that was fine too.
    I wound down my window. ‘Yeah?’
    ‘I think I missed my turning,’ he said. ‘Can you tell me where we are, roughly?’
    ‘Roughly,’ I said, ‘roughly we’re about a mile north of Wembley.’
    ‘And that’s west London?’ His accent wasn’t quite English, not southern English. Welsh or a Geordie or a Scouser maybe.
    ‘About as west as you can get,’ I told him. Yeah, the wild west.
    ‘I can’t be too far away then. I want St John’s Wood. That’s west too, isn’t it?’
    ‘Yeah, not far at all.’ These poor sods, you came across them a lot in my line of work. New to the city and pleading directions, getting hot and a bit crazy as the signposts and one-ways led them further into the maze. I felt sorry for them a lot of the time. It wasn’t their fault. So I took my time as I directed him towards Harlesden, miles away from where he wanted to be.
    ‘It’s a short cut,’ I told him. He seemed pleased to have some local knowledge. He went back to his car and sounded his horn in thank you as he drove off. I know, that was a bit naughty of me, wasn’t it? Well, there you go. That was my spot of devilry for the night. I started my own car and headed back on to the road.
    There was a sign off saying ‘Works Access Only’, so I signalled and drove between two rows of striped traffic cones. Then I stopped the car. There were no other cars around, just the dark shapes of earth-moving equipment and cement mixers. Fine and dandy. Cars and lorries roared past, but they didn’t give me a second’s notice. They